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Law Library Blog (February 2023): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

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Changemakers: 'You Have To Adapt To Survive', Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

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The Conflict Among African American Penal Interests: Rethinking Racial Equity In Criminal Procedure, Trevor George Gardner

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article argues that neither the criminal justice reform platform nor the penal abolition platform shows the ambition necessary to advance each of the primary African American interests in penal administration. It contends, first, that abolitionists have rightly called for a more robust conceptualization of racial equity in criminal procedure. Racial equity in criminal procedure should be considered in terms of both process at the level of the individual, and the number of criminal procedures at the level of the racial group—in terms of both the quality and “quantity” of stops, arrests, convictions, and the criminal sentencings that result in …

'To Empower And Amplify Lgbtq+ Voices' 09-16-2022, Michelle Choate

Life of the Law School (1993- )

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Changemakers: Master Of Studies In Law: 'Radical Imagination, Radical Listening', Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

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Civil Rights Catch 22s, Jonathan Feingold

Faculty Scholarship

Civil rights advocates have long viewed litigation as a vital path to social change. In many ways, it is. But in key respects that remain underexplored in legal scholarship, even successful litigation can hinder remedial projects. This perverse effect stems from civil rights doctrines that incentivize litigants (or their attorneys) to foreground community plight—such as academic underachievement or overincarceration. Rational plaintiffs, responding in kind, deploy legal narratives that tend to track racial stereotypes and regressive theories of inequality. When this occurs, even successful lawsuits can harden the structural and behavioral forces that produce and perpetuate racial inequality.

I refer to …

Rwu Law News: The Newsletter Of Roger Williams University School Of Law 04-2021, Michael M. Bowden, Barry Bridges, Political Roundtable

Life of the Law School (1993- )

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Law School News: Professor Gonzalez Is 2020 Rhode Island Lawyer Of The Year 01/11/21, Barry Bridges, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

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The 16th Annual Diversity Symposium Dinner, April 4, 2019, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

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Law School News: Boston's New Da Will Deliver Mlk Address 01-10-2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

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Newsroom: Governor Raimondo On Rwu Law 09-19-2017, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

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How Much Is Police Brutality Costing America?, Eleanor Lumsden

Publications

The criminal law of the United States fails to stop the unlawful killing of minorities by law enforcement. In fact, it was never meant to do so. Civil tort law is also unequal to the task. The consequences of not correcting these legal failures are far-reaching for the United States and for our neighbors, and have so far been underreported. This article explores the direct and indirect costs of these failings, positive measures already underway, and makes further sugges-tions for reform.

Aging Injunctions And The Legacy Of Institutional Reform Litigation, Jason Parkin

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Institutional reform litigation has been an enduring feature of the American legal system since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. The resulting injunctions have transformed countless bureaucracies notorious for resisting change, including public school systems, housing authorities, social services agencies, correctional facilities, and police departments. But these injunctions face an uncertain future. The Supreme Court has held that institutional reform injunctions must be easier to terminate than all other injunctions issued by the federal courts. Some institutional reform injunctions go unenforced or are forgotten entirely. Others expire due to sunset provisions. At the same time, doctrinal …

Positive Education Federalism: The Promise Of Equality After The Every Student Succeeds Act, Christian Sundquist

Articles

This Article examines the nature of the federal role in public education following the recent passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act in December 2015 (“ESSA”). Public education was largely unregulated for much of our Nation’s history, with the federal government deferring to states’ traditional “police powers” despite the de jure entrenchment of racial and class-based inequalities. A nascent policy of education federalism finally took root following the Brown v. Board decision and the enactment of the Elementary and Secondary School Act (“ESEA”) with the explicit purpose of eradicating such educational inequality.

This timely Article argues that current federal education …

Newsroom: Reeves Urges: 'Be Citizen Soldiers', Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

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Why Insurance Contracts Might Be The Trick To Police Reform, John F. Preis

Law Faculty Publications

How do lawsuits deter misconduct? That is an issue that Professor Joanna Schwartz has written about before, and her latest article on the topic, How Governments Pay: Lawsuits, Budgets and Police Reform, could not be more timely. Over the past year, our county has witnessed dramatic instances of police abuse and the public is understandably demanding reform. Schwartz’s terrific article explains why civil rights actions may fail to instigate reform, and suggests how insurance contracts, of all things, can play a role in fixing this problem.

Reforming Property Law To Address Devastating Land Loss, Thomas W. Mitchell

Faculty Scholarship

Tenancy-in-common ownership represents the most widespread form of common ownership of real property in the United States. Such ownership under the default rules also represents the most unstable ownership of real property in this country. Thousands of tenancy-in-common property owners, including members of many poor and minority families, have lost their commonly-owned property due to court-ordered, forced partition sales as well as much of their real estate wealth associated with such ownership as a result of such sales. Though some scholars and the media have highlighted how thousands of African-Americans have lost an untold amount of property and substantial real …

Lgbt Families, Tax Nothings, Anthony C. Infanti

Articles

The federal tax laws have never been friendly territory for LGBT families. Before the enactment of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the federal tax laws turned a blind eye to the existence of LGBT families by tacitly embracing state law discrimination against same-sex couples. When it enacted DOMA in 1996, Congress ensured that it would be able to continue to turn a blind eye to LGBT families even if one or more states were to legally recognize families headed by same-sex couples. In a real sense, LGBT families have been, and continue to be, tax outlaws.

This overt …

Revisiting Beccaria's Vision: The Enlightenment, America's Death Penalty, And The Abolition Movement, John Bessler

All Faculty Scholarship

In 1764, Cesare Beccaria, a 26-year-old Italian criminologist, penned On Crimes and Punishments. That treatise spoke out against torture and made the first comprehensive argument against state-sanctioned executions. As we near the 250th anniversary of its publication, law professor John Bessler provides a comprehensive review of the abolition movement from before Beccaria's time to the present. Bessler reviews Beccaria's substantial influence on Enlightenment thinkers and on America's Founding Fathers in particular. The Article also provides an extensive review of Eighth Amendment jurisprudence and then contrasts it with the trend in international law towards the death penalty's abolition. It then discusses …